L'edizione critica delle "Epistole" metriche di Albertino Mussato: il testo, i temi, le fonti (con un'appendice 'dantesca')

The article presents the first critical edition of the metric Epistles by Albertino Mussato, twenty poems of varying lengths (for a total of 1.570 verses) addressed to several recipients, which have so far been available to readers only through an edition printed in Venice in 1636 and based on a lost manuscript. Whilst illus- trating the textual tradition of the text, the author also addresses the main philo- logical problems raised by the constitutio textus. The article also displays the the- matic areas covered by the Epistles in a variety of styles and tones. The overall aim is to outline a comprehensive framework for intellectual Mussato’s program by unearthing the classical and late antique sources that emerge from the entire cor- pus. The last part of the article focuses on some of the Epistles, the least known to the readers, which are unified by the theme of exile; the final point of focus is an Epistle very similar in content and metaliterary implications to the narrative tex- ture and the poetic reasons that distinguish Dante’s Divine Comedy.